Why do our flight suits allow for a separate toe? Are we going to develop opposable big toes in the future? What can we actually operate with this marvellous new evolutionary feature? (Could it be the jettison all cargo button, or worse, the self destruct switch under our toes?)
Our ships are under zero gravity. I'd imagine that having the ability to grab onto stuff, or to hold yourself in position, with your toes would probably be a useful skill a spacer would develop.
Didn’t read all the replies, but why piracy exists? At all?
Quadrillion tonnes of unclaimed, free precious metals and rocks floating everywhere in space, just begging to be picked up easily and quickly.
But no. Mr Pirate needs 2T of food cartridges right now. Ok mate, enjoy cold hard vacuum.
The ED universe has been carefully designed to allow piracy to happen, and has been filled with an infinite supply of NPC morons in lightly armed pirate ships to make sure it happens, quite frequently. I'll admit it's an annoying feature of the game, for me.
Some piracy should exist - after all, one could just as easily argue that with easy access to government welfare and charities, crime shouldn't exist in the 21st century either. But the level of piracy and the general lack of strategic and tactical awareness of the pirates is silly. If I were a pirate and I flew into a RES site looking for easy targets but instead found local space filled with the debris of a couple dozen of my recently-deceased fellow-pirates, I'd assume there was a mean pirate-hunter lurking about and I'd get out of there pronto. I wouldn't stay there and wait to be his next victim. "Bounty farming" should not be a thing.
Why do the traffic controllers never sleep? Always the same controller at the same port. You'd think they'd rotate in 8 hour shifts or similar.
Unless of course they are meant to be just voice recordings in the game.
They do sleep, and do operate on 8 hour shifts. It's just that the Pan-galactic Air Traffic Controller's Union insists that starports must hire identical triplets, to ensure consistency of arrival messages. Of course, non-triplets in Imperial space wanting to become air traffic controllers can always get themselves cloned a couple of times.
A commander works hard to gain favour with a faction so he can be considered worthy enough to acquire a permit to access restricted star systems. Why is their permit not permanently revoked after committing crimes in said system, crimes like smuggling, piracy, terrorism?
Hear hear, to that. I'd like to see more demotability, generally. Give actions some long-term consequences that would make people actually think twice about doing them. Betray a permit-owning faction? Get your permit revoked. Betray and commit crimes against a superpower you've already ranked up with? Get demoted and whatever permits and ships you unlocked, get locked back up again. Any locked ships you already own you can keep, but you can't buy new ones or rebuy replacements if you lose them. Same with Powerplay: want to keep your powerplay toys? Stay pledged, or you lose the right to re-buy them.
A lot of these questions are rhetorical or tongue in cheek. Those attempting to answer those type make me laugh out loud.
Loud I said.
Glad to provide some amusement for you.
